Repeals provisions of law relating to service award programs

Summary of provisions

Section 1. Repeal subdivision 217 (f) of the general municipal law.

Section 2. Overrides any provisions in local service award program plans which implemented and enforced subdivision 217 (f) repealed by this act.

Section 3. Effective date.

Justification

In 1988, article 11-a was added to the general municipal law (gml) to authorize municipalities and fire districts to establish Length of Service Award Programs (LOSAPs). Presently, approximately 600 such plans are operated in New York to incent recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. Although the service awards provided pursuant to LOSAPs are related to credits earned annually by performing various volunteer firefighter functions for a period of years and are paid on a monthly basis upon the participating volunteer reaching a certain age, LOSAPs are not "pension plans" and the receipt of such awards are not "pension benefits" for any federal or state purposes.

The extensive commitment to preparation for and active participation in providing emergency services to one's community is not, in any real sense, recompensed by the availability of small LOSAP payments to long- serving, dedicated volunteers but it may be perceived as minimal incen- tive to commence and to continue undertaking such training and providing essential public service.

Subdivision 217 (f) of the gml, ineffectually and unfairly penalizes all public employees who serve their state or community as paid civil serv- ants and separately as volunteer firefighters. Section 217 (f) of the gml precludes a volunteer firefighter who provides firefighter services (generally emergency services) during his or her "regularly assigned work periods" from receiving LOSAP credit for those services. So, in spite of the increasingly desperate need to attract folks willing to undergo hundreds of hours of required training and stay active for many, many years to earn any marginally-significant LOSAP benefits, public employees are "disincented" from providing volunteer firefighter services for circumstances over which they have no control and which may already cause them significant employment-related penalties. Individual public employees have no control over whether their employer will allow them to respond to a structural fire in their community during their 'regularly assigned work period' what leave credits will be charged for their absence from work, whether additional ("make-up") work will be required of them or any other issues under the exclusive control of

their public employer. In order for a public employee to earn State or NYC pension credit for hours worked or leave credits used, those hours must be reported to the respective pension system; "regularly assigned work periods" have no meaning or relevance to pension credit accrual or employer reporting.

Individual volunteer firefighters have no control over when their commu- nity will need to access their trained and sometimes life risking skills. The administration of a LOSAP plan cannot, rationally be contin- gent upon fire officers questioning each volunteer in the aftermath of a fire emergency as to whether they had reported for duty during a 'regu- larly assigned work period" as a public employee and then reporting this to a plan administrator. Therefore, it is highly likely that this exist- ing law "is honored more in its breach than its observance". Two volun- teer firefighters responding side-by-side to an emergency in their community should earn the same LOSAP credits for doing so without a penalty being imposed upon one who is a public servant who may or may not be a participant in a pension system and who will be subject to whatever constraints, sanctions or requirements a public employer may impose in relation to their time away from work.

Diligent research has failed to disclose similar public employee penal- ties in other states which have LOSAP programs except to note that New Jersey initially had a virtually identical provision in their LOSAP law but promptly repealed it after a couple of years because it was ineffec- tual and ufair, New Jersey Public Law 2001 Chapter 272. Subdivision 217 (f) is unfair, ineffectual and antithetical to the public policy embodied in the remainder of article 11-a of the gml; it should be repealed.

Legislative history

New bill.

Fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

Immediately.